Craciunas Crushes Three Events, Voertmann Player of The Series and Much More From The Festival Rozvadov

Craciunas Bags a Hattrick

Romanian Paul Craciunas arrived in Rozvadov at the midway point of The Festival Series, taking to the felt for the first time in the €350 Open Face Chinese. Specialists and innovators were out in force, from key influencer Risto Ponnio, who helped introduce the Pineapple format of OFC, Festival Series regular and OFC crusher, Fabian Bartushck, and of course, The Festival founder, Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk.

However, it was Craicunas who topped the pack of the 56 total entrants that took to the felt over the gruelling 11-hour session. He bested The Hendon Mob’s best flaghunter in 2025, Koen Roos, in a swingy heads-up battle, which saw Craicunas seal the deal with fives full of jacks on the bottom board, deuces in the middle, and ace-high up top to win €5,400.

Craciuns’ appetite was far from satiated, with his eyes on more prizes. He then max-late regged the €175 NLH €25k GTD event. This side event attracted a field of 213 entrants and played long into the small hours of the following day. But on the eve of Day 5 of the series, Craicunas had added a second title and €5,230 to his Festival Series earnings after a three-way deal.

Naturally, Craciunas’ target was the marquee Hold’em event of the week, the €550 Main Event. With a €500,000 guarantee up for grabs, Craciunas entered Flight 1E and bagged a modest stack of 313,000. However, come the end of Day 2, he had 3,055,000 to work with, good for 5th place in the last 16. He was building up early and came into the final table as the chip leader. It was a swingy session for Craciunas as he yo-yo’d up and down the counts. He lost a flip in the early hands of final table play with tens versus ace-queen to double a short-stack. However, against that same opponent in one of the opening hands after the break, Craciunas made the nut flush against two-pair to leave his opponent, Zdrvako Lamot, a former contestant on Big Brother Croatia, with one big blind.

The Poker Gods clearly thought that this was Craciunas’s trip. In a blind-v-blind confrontation, Craciunas opened to 3.5 big blinds with eights. Rama Prema moved all in for around 17 big blinds with nines. Craciunas tanked before calling. An eight in the window was met with an eight in the back as Craicunas flopped quads to leave Prema pretty much dead. There was no runner-runner miracle for Prema, and play was then five-handed. Florin Bilan was short, and he called off a jam from Craciunas with ace-seven offsuit. Craciunas queen-three suited made threes and kings across a paired runout.

Craciunas’ heads-up opponent Babubarsch knocked out Grzegorz Flak, who had incredible support throughout the final table through the YouTube and Twitch chats of the live stream, and David Vesely, who co-owns pokertime.cz., in third and fourth respectively to take a small lead into heads-up play. A deal was made three-handed, which would see €16,400 and the trophy left to play for. However, it wasn’t long until Craciunas turned the tables and applied maximum pressure whenever possible. Ultimately, Craicunas limp-four-bet jammed ace-nine offsuit and was called by king-nine offsuit. An ace on the turn left Babubarsch drawing dead, and Craciunas the winner of a third Festival Series title. In total, Craciunas cashed for a whopping €82,370. He played four events, and won three of them, finishing out of the money in only the €230 Bounty Hunter Days Mystery Bounty.

Check out the full interview below, as well as the payouts.

Place	Player	Country	Payout
1	Paul Craciunas		€71,740*
2	Babubarsch		€51,250*
3	David Vesely		€43,310*
4	Grzegorz Flak		€27,100
5	Florin Bilan		€20,800
6	Rama Prema		€16,000
7	Zdravko Lamot		€12,300
8	Enrico Falco		€9,400
9	Ariel Kayat		€7,220

*Denotes Deal

Check Out The Winners Interview!

WSOP Bracelet Winner to Player of The Series

In a very competitive and hotly contested Player of the Series race, it was WSOP Bracelet winner Jens Voertmann who took down the title and a package worth €1,600 to the next full stop in Malta. Voertmann is a Festival regular and one of the only ones to have a WSOP Bracelet in his collection. The Player of the Series race went down to the wire, with the Main Event Craciunas being able to top the leaderboard rankings with a podium finish. However, as a result of the three-handed deal in the Main Event and in the €175 NLH, he didn’t earn the maximum amount of points, leaving Voertmann at the top by the smallest margin of 0.25 of a point!

Voertmann stuck in the Mixed Game streets, winning one event and cashing in five of nine total events. He took down the €350 The Festival 10-Game Mix for €3,780, his biggest score of the week. He also final tabled the €150 Baby TORSES (Supreme) and the €350 8-Game, finishing 3rd and 4th, respectively, in incredibly tough fields. On the final day, Voertmann sealed the deal by regging the PLO event. He did not cash, however, but the 1.25 participation point was enough to see him seal the deal as a result of Craciunas’ deal in the Main Event.

Player of the Series Top 10

Rank	Player	Country	Played	Cashed	ITM Pts	Participation Pts	Total Pts
1	Jens Voertmann		9	5	101	20	121
2	Paul Craciunas		4	3	109.5	11.25	120.75
3	Madskills		8	4	74	22.5	96.5
4	Benedict Kaiser		7	3	79.5	15	94.5
5	Siarhei Narozhny		14	4	65	27.5	92.5
6	Fabian Bartuschk		8	4	68.5	23.75	92.25
7	Olof Holmström		9	4	73.5	16.25	89.75
8	Thomas Eckerstorfer		5	2	67.5	17.5	85
9	Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk		13	2	51	32.5	83.5
10	Deniss Lebedevs		7	2	57.5	18.75	76.25

Side Events Smash Guarantees

The side events proved popular once again at The Festival Series, with guarantees being passed in a range of different tournament variants. One of the surprise turnouts was a field of 81 total entrants into the €125 Blackjack tournament, which took place on the ornate gaming space at King’s on the second day of The Festival. The guaranteed prize pool of €5,000 ballooned to a tasty €8,505, and was won by none other than Festival founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk, who banked €2,390 for his ten-hand session at the tables.

The two tournaments that Craciunas won en route to Main Event victory also saw prize pools increase. The €350 Open Face Chinese generated a €16,000 prize pool from 56 total entrants by the time registration came to a close. The initial guarantee was set at €10,000, which just goes to show the demand for Mixed Games continues to be strong.

And finally, the €175 €20k guarantee generated a total prizepool of €31,000, with €10,000 of that heading back to Romania with Craciunas and his compatriot “GiGi Kent”, who finished second of the 213 total entrants.

What’s Next?

Want to get involved in future Festival Series stops? The next one is a Weekend stop in Tallinn, from July 1 to July 5. You can qualify online via Olybet satellites to get there at a discount. For the next full stop, The Festival Series will return to the beautiful Portomaso Casino in Malta from September 14 to September 20. The next run of online qualifiers on iPoker, WPT Global and Unibet will commence from July 6. Get involved and win a package worth up to €1,800!